I Can't Do Salary Surveys Anymore

I love spreadsheets. Is it the ISTJ in me that loves the boxes, the formulas, and the grids? Does anything compare to the excitement of figuring out how to round down in Excel instead of rounding up? I enjoy compensation. I could spend hours, reviewing salary surveys; analyzing data; determining benchmark rates; and working with others to develop and articulate a compensation philosophy. Even better, I get to use spreadsheets with compensation. Yeah!

I am in the cities now for a 2 day course on compensation.  We are one organization with no less than four different and distinct ways to set pay complete with all the intricacies, rules, exceptions and spreadsheets one could ask for. I am in heaven. The geek in me is joyous.

The geek in me is in mourning. For most of the participants, they are being introduced to pay surveys for the first time. They are here so they can learn and take on the task for their medical centers. For me, this is a refresher.  A refresher before I can confidently pass the torch to the lucky member of my staff sitting beside me. Yes, you read that right. I am going to delegate salary surveys to another. You can't believe I am doing that, right? I know, neither can I. But I am.

I need to relinquish this task for the betterment of the process. Salary surveys take blocks of uninterrupted time. Blocks of uninterrupted time are things that I do not have right now and this is negatively impacting others. I need to ensure the ensure the timeliness of the process and can only do that by doing things differently. How? By providing leadership to the compensation process and by not doing it.

I love this part of HR and I am not the right person to do work on salary surveys right now. Fortunately, I know just the person who can take this process from me and do it better that I ever did.

I wonder if she will let me color code cells, create some drop down menus or embed a few formulas for old times sake?

How Do You Provide Regular Feedback to Your Staff?

What does it take to send you down a path of inquiry? It doesn't take much for me: a question; an interaction;  an unexpected outcome; or even a comment to a post can get me going down that path. Almost always, it is something that catches me off guard.

I posted a post here.  The post was about the kid's second grade teacher and the"gold slip" method she was trying to redirect the children in her class to the tasks at hand. Ron Ulrici posted a comment here and said:

My ego went into high gear and I began spinning through the defenses of who has the time (too busy, sigh), my staff know their work is appreciated, chocolate can right all wrongs, the manager who can do that must simply be way too overstaffed, etc.  Ron's comment caught me off guard. I consider myself a good leader but was I?  I started to reply a few times that night but did not. I did not respond until the next day.   

My reply did not end my inquiry. The regular, developmental interaction Ron referenced is something that I know, in my core, is just what each member of my staff would benefit from as individuals and team members. The timing is right for the team. The timing is right for me. I have people to lead and tasks to accomplish and I experience a continual tension between the two.  Time and time again, the tasks win out and something needs to change. Is it m

For those that have been able to do this with any degree of success and satisfaction, what has worked for you?y perspective or priorities? My staffing level? Or something else?

I prefer positive reinforcement when the “good” behavior is witnessed. A good manager I used to know would always sit down with each person in his department once a week without fail and tell them the great things they did during the week and the areas where they could have done better. His people were always top performers and his performance appraisals were simply recaps of his weekly meetings.